Jonah Berger Interview

Jonah Berger On Mastering Communication -- Online And In Real Life

MM: On the topic of conversation then, you’ve also found that controversy has a different effect than most people would expect. What happens when someone brings up something controversial?

JB: Controversy does two things: it makes conversation more interesting, but it also makes it more uncomfortable. If we’re always talking about things that people agree on, that can become boring. But when people disagree about something, especially if they disagree strongly, it can be uncomfortable to talk about. Depending on who you’re talking to, the effects may vary. If you know someone really well, then it’s more okay to talk about more uncomfortable things, so it might be more OK to talk about more controversial ideas. If we know someone less well, we’re less willing to share them. If you’re meeting a new boss, you’re not going to bring up issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Same with your identity online. If people know who you are and it reflects on your identity, you might worry about talking about controversial things. But if you’re anonymous, like on a discussion board, people are more comfortable bringing up controversial things.

MM: So the takeaway is that guys should be aware of their audience?

JB: Yeah, recognize that while controversy can get you conversational points for being interesting and it’s worth trying to go for those, sometimes you also have to be careful. Think about what your sharing signals about you. If someone doesn’t know you very much, it’s going to signal more about you.

MM: You’ve found that emotion plays a big role in why people share things or not. More specifically, you talk about “high-arousal emotions.” Can you speak to those and why they drive us to share?

JB: We usually think about emotions as positive or negative. Some make us feel good, some make us feel bad. But there’s also another dimension on which emotions differ and that is the level of arousal or activation. Physiological arousal is when your heart beats quicker, you’re ready for action. When you think about two emotions, anger and sadness, both of them are negatives. But they differ on that level of arousal or activation. When you’re angry, you want to throw something or yell at someone. You want to take an action. Sadness is more of a deactivating emotion. When you’re sad, you want to curl up in a ball and eat a bowl of ice cream or wear your favorite sweatshirt and do nothing. So what our research shows is not that it’s just the positivity or negativity of emotion that impacts sharing, but it’s also the level of arousal. High-arousal emotions really drive people to share, whereas low-arousal emotions, not so much.

This is interesting because if you look online, you might have said, sure, we see angry political rants and sure, we see really funny things on YouTube but those are really different. Our research shows those are pretty similar. Both of those are high-arousal because they drive people to action, and one of those actions is sharing.

MM:So how do you see that play out with guys?

JB: You often see cases where people get really angry about something and they tweet about it. A couple of years ago, for example, Michael Vick’s brother was very upset about a particular game and he hopped on Twitter. Because he was angry, he started making all these comments that he later regretted. So you have to be careful about over-sharing. Even though we may not realize it, these emotions drive us to share when in some cases it might not be in our best interest. When we’re angry, for example, that might cause us to share something that normally, in our regular state, we wouldn’t be as likely to share.

Interestingly enough, we found similar things with exercise. Just like emotional arousal drives people to share, even exercise, because it’s physiologically arousing, drives people to share. So be careful. Next time you’re at the gym or you’re on a flight and it’s a little rickety back and forth and you experience arousal, whether because you worked out or your flight was rough, you will be more likely to share without realizing it.

At the same time, there’s a positive side to it. If you want to get someone to open up, maybe take a walk with them, for example. Getting their blood going a little bit may make them more willing to share than in just a simple sit-down conversation.